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apology, then blurted, “But I really don’t see how going on a date or two with Joe Rizzo would—”
    “I know you don’t,” Sara replied. “Listen, Cookie, I’m tired of this place. Let’s go back to your house and play some records.”
    As they pushed their way through the thorny blackberry bushes, a silent figure slid from behind a pine tree and followed them
.

5
    P rofessor Pelletier , you must wonder what we’re doing here, so far from our jurisdiction,” said the tall, thin New York lieutenant, oh-so-politely concerned with my peace of mind. And rightly so. Piotrowski’s call had rendered me confused and apprehensive about what these out-of-state cops wanted from me.
    This homicide team was a walking advertisement for Empire State diversity. The senior investigator, a blond woman in her late thirties with pale skin, pink-tinged ears, and virtually transparent eyebrows, stood so ramrod straight she looked uncomfortable. Her partner was much more laid back. A young sergeant, he was a medium-height, pudgy man of some mixed lineage, African-Latino-Caucasian, brewed in the ethnic cauldron of the Bronx.
    Although Lieutenant Paula Syverson wore a plain gray pants suit over a peach silk shirt, she might as well have been in uniform. Her shoulders were so square, her demeanor so stiff, I half-consciously checked for the state-police shoulder patch. From the moment they entered my office, Sergeant Rudolpho
—call me Rudy—
Williams was the tactical charmer of the pair, elaborately agog at the beautiful Enfield College campus, ostentatiously impressed at talking to
—conversing with
, he corrected himself—a real English professor.
Give me a break!
I thought, as I settled them in mystudent chairs and retreated strategically behind the desk, welcoming even the most tenuous barrier between me and these minions of the law.
    The news of Marty Katz’s murder was a shock, but I couldn’t imagine what “circumstances” could possibly link his demise to me. Piotrowski had declined to give me any details other than the basics: The journalist was victim of a homicide—somewhere in rural New York State, I assumed, since the staties were handling it rather than city cops—and the investigators wanted to interview me. But why me? My only contact with Mr. Katz had been the
Times
interview, and that was an open book—an open newspaper—for all the world to see.
    “I’m a SUNY-Albany grad, myself,” the voluble Sergeant Williams continued, “but I never saw anything at all like this on my campus.” He gestured around my office at the polished hardwood floors, the green needlepoint area rug, the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, the tall bay window with its plush window seat. “It was all strictly concrete and cinder-blocks. This is impressive.”
    The lieutenant gave him a pale glance:
Enough. The wheels are greased; let’s roll
. “Well, Professor?” she asked.
“Don’t
you wonder what a couple of New York State Police officers are doing all the way out here in western Massachusetts?”
    I hesitated for less than a second: No way was I going to con this cool intelligence into thinking I was surprised by the news she was getting ready to spring on me; I’d better come clean about Piotrowski’s call. “Actually, Lieutenant, I know why you’re here.”
    Syverson’s jaw tightened. “You do?” The thin lieutenant leaned toward me, elbows on her knees, hands clasped at her chin. The studied informality did not come naturally to her; she must have taken a course:
Interrogation Strategies 101
. “Tell me all about it, Professor,”she said, in a compassionate manner borrowed from the confessional. I could almost hear the implied interrogational cliche:
You’ll feel a lot better if you do
.
    I laughed incredulously; did she think I was about to confess to murder? “Wait a minute, Lieutenant. Just wait a minute here—I didn’t kill him.”
    Syverson jerked upright. Rudy Williams’s hand flew to his belt:
Get out